1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to monitoring tanks, modules and an array. The modules contain living organisms, such as fish, while toxicity.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Bio-monitors have been used for assessing water quality, employing living organisms as the sensors. The sensors employed in these systems range from bacteria and invertebrates (such as insects, crustacea, and paramecia) to vertebrates (several species of fish). One sensor of special interest is the ventilatory behavior and activity of fish. This ventilatory behavior or activity can be detected by several methods. One of these methods calls for placing the fish in a monitoring chamber that is electrically insulated, and detecting the microvolts generated by the ventilatory behavior and activity of the fish. The monitoring chamber is exposed to continuous flows of the water being monitored. The electrical signals from a given fish change with the quality or toxicity of the water. The monitoring provides an early warning system, which varies with the application such as whether the monitor is to be used for industrial waste water, municipal waste water discharges, or raw drinking water. The general principles of such a monitoring system are well known, for example, see Automated Bio-Monitoring by J. Diamond, M. Collins and D. Gruber, published in 1988 by Ellis Horwood Ltd., Chichester, England, ISBN O 7458-0310-5, and the references cited therein which are incorporated herein by reference.
One of the reasons that fish make good bio-monitors is that they have an extraordinarily good sense of smell. It is estimated by others that a good hunting dog can smell one-thousand times better than his master, and a fish can smell one-thousand times better than a dog. It is further estimated by others that one drop of some chemicals can be placed in Lake Erie, and some fish are so sensitive they can detect it anywhere in the lake.
A fish ventilatory monitoring tank which has been used before consists of a glass tank through which water being monitored can constantly flow, and in which the fish used as the bio-sensor is contained. The tank is insulated and has electrodes at each end of the tank. The tank has a tapered outlet at one end which permits flow over a standpipe for the outlet of the water. The microvolt electrical signals detected by the electrodes are amplified, filtered and processed by a computer.
This old unit of a fish tank upon which the present invention is an improvement, suffers from several problems which include too much electrical noise, the potential for some of the components leaching which would contaminate the water, difficulty of viewing the tanks to examine the fish and ocean the tank, and the lack of an indicator that the water is flowing. The present invention is substantially different and an improvement to the old fish tank or exposure chamber.